


as my feet walk from the ashes

by KivaEmber



Category: Persona 5, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Galactic Road Trip, Implied Mind Rape, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, That's Not How The Force Works, The Dark Side of the Force (Star Wars), The Force, The Light Side of the Force (Star Wars), character tags will be added as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: "What matters isn't if people are good or bad. What matters is if they're trying to be better today than they were yesterday."The Emperor and his feared shadow, Darth Vader, are dead, giving hope to the Rebels that the New Republic can truly be achieved.Below such lofty ambitions and ideals, however, there's a smuggler who's just trying to get by in an increasingly dangerous galaxy - and an Inquisitor turned deserter. By a strange quirk of the Force their destinies become entangled, kick-starting a long, arduous journey of redemption, self-discovery, and the realisation that it's never too late to be better.tl;dr Inquisitor!Akechi and Smuggler!Akira go on a galactic roadtrip.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	as my feet walk from the ashes

When Goro was five, his mother killed herself. 

It was a memory that remained stark and hyper-visualised no matter how much time passed. The tiny confines of their shack on Nar Shaddaa, the smell of rotting trash and human sweat that lingered no matter how many times their shack was cleaned, the grinding, thunderous noise of the industrial pistons their ghetto crowded around, the blood, his mother, her glassy eyes as she whispered  _ ‘i w-wasn’t- strong enough’- _

Goro had been five, and confused - but he had seen enough in Nar Shaddaa to know what dying looked and smelled like. He had cried, he had begged her not to go, he had asked  _ ‘what did i do i’m sorry i’ll be better i’ll be better don’t go don’t go doN’T GO  _ **_DON’T GO_ ** _ -’ _

The Force had contracted, and the memory disintegrated like an asteroid hitting the atmosphere. Crumbled up into fire and screeching metal and so much  _ red,  _ the Force a roaring, thundering snarl that vibrated through his bones and into his organs until he felt fit to splay apart and - that was how the Jedi had found him. 

_ That _ was when time started eroding the details. 

Goro remembered it was Master Koth who had found him. He remembered being plucked from the ruins of his shattered life on Nar Shaddaa and taken to Coruscant. He remembered his initiation being blurred, the white walls of the Healing Halls and gentle words of the healers, the sight of mother dead and bleeding fading inch by inch behind his eyelids as time marched on. Except for that memory, that singular memory that squatted in the darkness of his dreams like a sentinel. A reminder. A comfort. 

Despite the violent background of his origins, Goro was considered a model Jedi growing up in the temple. No attachments - that suited him fine. No emotions? Easier to survive. He wadded up everything, crushed it in his hand, and launched it underhanded into the Force, that voracious beast that consumed and consumed and consumed and hungered for more and more and more. He didn’t understand, even when he had ‘mastered’ the Force, why no one else thought it strange that they blindly fed this eldritch, pervasive entity everything that made them  _ them. _

The Force ate them piece by piece, slowly and slowly, a little at a time, and they thanked it and asked it to follow them home, and fed it some more. The Force was everything and nothing all at once, and Goro loved and loathed it in equal measure. 

When Goro was five, his mother killed himself and his entire world, as tiny and pathetic as it had been, collapsed in on itself like a neutron star. It went into supernova and he rose from its ashes as something new. 

When Goro was fifteen, the Clones turned on all of the Jedi and his entire world, as violent and vast as it had been, collapsed in on itself like a neutron star. Once more it went into supernova, and he was fished out of its still smouldering ashes by a dark shadow that rasped low and loud. 

Goro was dragged into hell as a Jedi kicking and screaming.

He left as an Inquisitor. 

When Goro was thirty eight, the Empire fell and his entire world, as horrific and hellish as it had been, collapsed in on itself like a neutron star. Once more it went into supernova, and he fled from its still crumbling remains like the Jedi he had hunted down before. He fled. He ran. He snatched the first chance of freedom, when sensing the leash around his throat loosening with the Emperor and Vader’s deaths. He ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. 

He ran and ran and ran until he was, once more, back at the beginning: Nar Shaddaa. 

* * *

**_4 ABY - NAR SHADDA_ **

_“_ The deal’s off.”

Akira bit back the urge to spit out a rough Huttese curse, smacking his datapad against the flat of his palm as his toydarian middle man decided to, well, _not_ be his middle man. Deucalon Spaceport was not the best place to find himself sitting on hot cargo with nowhere to push it, and considering the Galactic Empire had ‘collapsed’ about, oh, a week ago, _kyber crystals_ were _uncomfortably_ hot. 

“You couldn’t tell me before I landed?” Akira grouched, giving his palm one last smack with the pad before gesturing to his ship over his shoulder. The cargo bay was open, the massive crates ready to be unloaded visible, “I could have taken this onwards to Nal Hutta before I went through customs.” 

The toydarian, called Deg, waved his hand dismissively, “With Grakkus gone, there’s no drive for those crystals. And the Empire’s finished.” 

“The Empire’s not finished,” Akira pointed out, “S’just got a power vacuum at the top. Some other _sleemo_ will become Emperor and start wanting kyber again.”

“Bah! It’ll rip itself apart! It’s like when the Hutts squabble!” Deg shook his head, his bulbous nose wobbling from the gesture, “It’s off. I’ve got no buyers - none I want to deal with. Find somewhere else to off load.”

 _“E chu ta!”_ Akira barked when Deg proceeded to fly off, leaving him standing there with a ship full of highly illegal contraband, “Kriffin’ _sleemo_.” 

This wasn’t good. 

Akira tucked his datapad onto his toolbelt, walking back to his ship: A Crescent-class luxurious freighter under the name LAVENZA, he had been extraordinarily lucky when coming across this beauty in a scrapyard on Klatooine - well, relatively. A lot of its parts had been cannibalised and Akira had ended up burning through almost all of his saved up credits retrofitting the hyperdrive alone, but the agony of an empty wallet had been worth it.

LAVENZA was a lightning fast smuggler ship with an elegance and dignity that deterred custom officials or patrols from looking too closely. Akira even converted the unneeded passenger cabins to expand the sensor suite and upgrade the shielding into something a little meatier, just for when things got a little _too_ hot for him to outsprint. In short, his Crescent-class freighter meant he got a lot of work in a lot of places - and also a lot of would be opportunists trying to commandeer the vessel from under his feet.

But that’s why he had Caroline and Justine. 

_“INMATE!”_ Justine’s furious binary squeaked at him when he stepped into the cargo hold, the R3-Q5 astromech trying in vain to run over his boots as punishment, _“YOU’RE BEHIND SCHEDULE! CARGO UNLOAD WAS TO HAPPEN TEN MINUTES AGO!”_

 _“Such irresponsibility,”_ Caroline’s softer beeps chided, close on the treads of her sister, _“This tardiness is a black mark against your rehabilitation, Inmate.”_

“It’s not my fault,” Akira whined, “My fence flaked on me.”

 _“UNACCEPTABLE!”_ Justine declared. 

_“Unacceptable,”_ Caroline agreed. 

“Oh, come on…” 

Akira’s astromechs bullied him for a few moments more, grumbling about how troublesome their _‘imperial prisoner’_ was for failing to be punctual in maintaining the supply routes of the Galactic Empire. It was a miracle the little hellions hadn’t contorted their logic routines into circuit-breaking knots from all the mental gymnastics they did, trying to justify why they were assisting a blatant criminal despite being _‘loyal droids of the Empire’._ Akira supposed he kriffed up somewhere when reprogramming them - or they were just that unique. They certainly weren’t as friendly or docile as other R3-series droids, that was for sure.

“Okay, okay, I’m very sorry for my unforgivable failure,” Akira said dutifully and tugged his boot out from under Justine’s unrelenting foot treads, “I’ll fix the problem, don’t worry.”

 _“SEE THAT YOU DO, INMATE!”_ Justine demanded, her binary rising into a shrill shriek, _“WE NEED THIS CARGO CLEARED FOR OUR NEXT TASKING!”_

 _“Delivery of goods to Sakiya,”_ Caroline clarified, _“Collection of cargo at the Imperial Spaceport Mezenti from Human Makoto is to be completed within the next three hours.”_

 _“AND OUR CARGO HOLD IS STILL FULL OF CARGO DEEMED ILLEGAL CONTRABAND BY THE GALACTIC EMPIRE!”_ Justine yelled, her domed head doing an aggravated spin, _“UNACCEPTABLE!”_

_“Unacceptable.”_

Akira sighed wearily. He loved his insane astromechs, but he really wished he could adjust Justine’s volume control. 

_“LESS BREATHING, INMATE!”_ Justine ordered, ramming his shins and almost sending him toppling over, _“AND MORE WORK!”_

“I need to breathe _to_ work!” Akira protested, but he let Justine chase him around his too full cargo hold until he clambered onto one of the large crates, where his two astromechs circled him like they were predators waiting for their unwitting prey to tumble out of its tree. Akira made a mental note to change their intimidating, black-plated chassis into something less menacing, like blue. 

_“COWERING UP THERE WON’T SAVE YOU FROM YOUR PUNISHMENT, INMATE,”_ Justine bellowed, her shrill, peeping binary echoing uncomfortably high-pitched in the cargo hold.

 _“This illicit cargo will not dispose of itself,”_ Caroline added calmly, _“Please initiate waste disposal protocols immediately.”_

“I can’t just _dump_ kyber crystals on Nar Shaddaa,” Akira grumbled even though, technically, he _could._ There were several locations that were commonly used to dispose of unwanted and _hot_ cargo in an untraceable hurry, though the only issue was _getting_ there with said cargo. He could attempt the Undercity, port at one of the shipyards down there - but that meant dealing with the Hutt Cartel. Since Grakkus got arrested by the Empire, the Hutts were a little snippy when Jedi paraphernalia or kyber crystals crossed their shipping manifestos.

Or snippy in general. There were a few rumblings of internal strife within the Hutt Cartels since Jabba died, and Akira didn’t want to accidentally stick his foot in the middle of _that_ mess waiting to happen.

Kriff. 

“I guess I could try to reach the moon’s surface…” Akira muttered, mentally running the scenario through his mind. It would be tricky, weaving between the degrading layers of ancient urban sprawl to the moon’s surface, but if he struck out towards the dark side of the moon, there was a weak spot in the ruins he could plunge into. The only issue was doing it by himself was going to be difficult. All kinds of unsavoury things lurked on the moon’s surface, like the Evocii or invasive species that had been hauled in from one freighter or another. 

Alternatively, he could leave the planet and jettison his cargo - but that was costly, a waste of fuel, and carried a risk of opportunistic pirates or fellow smugglers to swarm all over his vessel. 

_maybe i can try the ruins of that weird force academy? nothing goes near there,_ Akira mused, hopping off the crate and deftly avoiding Justine and Caroline, _then again, i hear that people disappear from there a lot. i shouldn’t risk it._

Guess he had no choice: he needed to hire some temporary help for a moon surface adventure. 

“I’m going to Rimmer’s Rest,” Akira said, waving goodbye to his astromechs as he made a beeline for the cargo ramp, “Look after the ship for me!”

_“YOU’RE GOING TO THE CANTINA!?”_

_“How irresponsible…”_

“I’m gonna do business!” Akira defended himself, stopping at the end of the ramp and turning to Caroline and Justine. The droids were perched at the top of the ramp, oozing judgement and disapproval, “Do you want me to get rid of this stuff before I get arrested or what?”

 _“HMMM,”_ Justine’s domed head swivelled to face her sister, _“CAROLINE?”_

 _“Justine,”_ Caroline’s domed head swivelled as well, the two droids communicating without words, _“...yes, I agree.”_

 _“INMATE,”_ Justine’s head snapped back to Akira, _“WE HAVE DECIDED TO GRANT YOU PERMISSION TO VISIT THE CANTINA FOR APPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES FOR ‘BUSINESS’. USE THAT TIME WISELY.”_

_“As a reminder, the limit is fifty milligrams of alcohol per one hundred milligrams of blood when operating a starship-”_

“I won’t get drunk,” Akira said, fondly exasperated, “Thanks for letting me go out, girls.”

 _“HMPH!”_ Justine spun around so her back faced him, _“DON’T READ TOO DEEPLY INTO IT, INMATE!”_

 _“Rewards are just as important as punishments when it comes to rehabilitation,”_ Caroline said, _“Please return within the timeframe, Inmate.”_

Akira waved a hand in acknowledgement, and turned away when one of the droids activated the cargo ramp. His ship sealed itself up, and he walked away from the docks, following the thick flow of foot traffic towards Rimmer’s Rest. He flipped his hood up, tugging it low over his face as he melded into the crowd, just another average smuggler among many: unimportant, uninteresting - just how he liked it. 

* * *

Within the smoky confines of this dive of a cantina Goro found, he was just another washed up mercenary among many: unimportant, uninteresting and abso-fucking-lutely _wasted._

He slammed his empty glass on the bar, leaning heavily on his elbow as he cradled his aching head. The Force around him was a buzzing, writhing thing, a cauldron of anticipation as the news of the Emperor's death oozed through the cantina like pungent tar. People gossiped, threw out wild theories - the Emperor, dead? Impossible. It was a stunt. A trap for the Rebels. No, the Rebels succeeded! The Empire was defeated! Fool, no one can stop the Empire, someone _else_ will become Emperor! The Rebels won. The Empire won. Who won? No one, both sides, one sides - yet nothing had changed but everything _had_ changed, fundamentally. Beyond mortal sight.

The Force churned, frothing the surface with an opaque film of oily black. Nothing had changed, yet, Goro could see a glint of _something_ beyond it, like a distant star going supernova. _Something_ had changed, somewhere. Maybe.

What did it mean? The question was asked. _What did it mean?_ The Force gave no reply, just churning and churning and churning. It had only told him the moment the Emperor died, had felt the Force hook its claws into his brainstem and pull - _run, run, run,_ it had whispered, and so he did; commandeering an imperial shuttle and gunning for the hyperlane before his desertion could be registered. He had entered coordinates blindly, yet not, because the Force guided him, and now he was here: sitting in a dingy cantina on Nar fucking Shaddaa, nauseous and sweaty-palmed and utterly lost.

 _here, here, here,_ the Force continued to whisper, and Goro bitterly wondered how much more alcohol would be needed to drown it out.

“‘nother refill?” the human bartender asked, and Goro wordlessly pushed his glass towards him. It was refilled with some brightly coloured, foul-smelling concoction.

“We don’t do tabs here,” the bartender reminded him pointedly, no doubt realising he'd given Goro at least seven refills at this point.

“I can pay,” Goro said gruffly, pulling his glass back towards him. It smelled like engine oil, and he knocked back a burning mouthful of it as the bartender moved away to serve other customers after giving him a dubious look. Kriff, this drink was shit. It was giving him a headache and cramping stomach pains without the fun tipsiness to take the edge off. 

“I think he’s trying to poison me,” Goro mumbled to himself, setting his half-empty glass down and scanning the cantina with heavy-lidded, exhausted eyes. 

Rimmer’s Rest was popular with visiting and resident bounty hunters and other unsavory sentients. It was common knowledge that you came here when looking for work or _to hire,_ resulting in a dangerous place where too many drunken, trigger-happy mercs were crammed together like sardines, a steady drone of white noise from arguments, boasting and haggling overwhelming the music. The lights were dim, casting everything into ominous shadows, broken only by the glints of datapads being slid across cantina tables or clutched in white-knuckled hands. 

It made the Force muddled, so much deceit and selfishness and agitation swirling in flashes of _deal-cheat-greed-kill,_ like ebony minnows darting just out of sight. It was difficult to grasp any singular mood, a focused thought - too many minds and bodies and echoes upon echoes of lives in this cramped place… plus he was so fucking _wasted_ that the Force slipped through his clumsy fingers like lumpy sand. It oozed and churned and swept over him like relentless waves, and Goro simply gave himself up into it, let it drown him beneath the dark emotions. It made it easier to just exist in the moment, rather than dwell on his current predicament.

Notably, there were no Imperial troops nestled amongst the groups of mercs and smugglers. Which was lucky. Goro doubted his desertion had been paid much attention in the aftermath of Emperor Palpatine's death - or even registered, considering his Imperial codes had still worked when he boldly docked at the Imperial spaceport - but he'd rather not tempt fate by lingering within arm's reach of Imperial forces. It'd be troublesome, otherwise.

 _lord vader is dead though, if rumours are to be believed,_ Goro mused, _he was the only thing keeping us inquisitors loyal._

Well, him and the Emperor. But both were dead, the _Sith_ were dead, so where did that leave him? He was no Sith, but he could no longer claim the title of Jedi - he was a twisted, pathetic tool trapped in between. He knew only how to hunt, to kill, to _interrogate,_ making enemies across the galaxy. Now he made an enemy of the Empire - or what will remain of it - and he had nowhere to go, no master to serve, no ideal to uphold. 

_but i’m free,_ he told himself firmly, _i’m free now. that’s enough, it has to be._

Goro picked up his foul tasting drink and made himself sip it, slumping lower over the bar. Yes, he was free, free to waste the last of his credits on shitty drinks in a bar with no idea where to go from here. He couldn’t set off on his borrowed ship - it was Imperial, easily traceable, and he had no credits to refuel it anyway - but neither was he going to spend the miserable remains of his ruined life in _Nar Shaddaa_ of all places. He might as well turn himself into the Imperial forces and take an honorable death as a traitor in that case. To live a dragged out, long death in filth like this... unacceptable.

Maybe he should prowl the spaceport and mind-trick the first weak-willed fool he stumbled across? How hard could it be to mug a Force-blind idiot? So long as he picked them off alone, and not in groups-

 **THERE** ** _,_ ** the Force snapped.

The command was a phantom claw piercing through his frontal lobe, his attention darting to the entrance of the cantina. There was a steady flow of foot traffic, people leaving, people arriving, people loitering and jostling and elbowing each other away and aside, but _there,_ hood drawn up and gait a confident swagger, comfortable and familiar, a humanoid. He strolled up to the bar, mere meters from Goro’s tense half-slouch, and struck up easy conversation with the stern bartender. He could see a dark curl of black hair peeking out past the hood. 

**there** _,_ the Force purred, **that one.**

_that one?_ Goro confirmed, sinking deeper into the dark eddies of the Force. The surface was sticky and oily, refracting unhealthy colours, clouding the various strands that lurked beneath the surface. Boldly, he plunged his metaphorical hand into the quagmire, fingers catching on a razor sharp glint of insight being offered to him-

_ah._

**THAT ONE,** the Force said, **THAT ONE.**

Reality quivered, and a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a _fraction_ of a moment between heartbeats granted Goro with a whisper of guidance. His innate skill in precognition was a rough, uneven thing - clouded by the Dark Side and the agony of his tortured existence, the preternatural instincts only appeared in brief, unhelpful flashes; a vision of splintered reality exploding into a myriad of directions, like peering into the epicenter of a ruptured sheet of glass, the glimmering shards a promise, a suggestion, a possibility of what was to come.

Yet. Sometimes, he was lucky and… 

Perhaps _this_ was why he came to Nar Shaddaa? 

The Force offered no answer. It had delivered its garbled guidance and now it settled in the opaque muck of the cantina. Reality steadied, Goro breathed, and the walking Shatterpoint accepted his drink from the bartender and walked towards a specific table. Goro watched him leave in open interest. 

Well. 

It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do. 

He finished his drink, set it and the last of his credits down, and went to meet his new, unknown destiny.

**Author's Note:**

> So you know how Akira and Goro look in this fic, here ya go, i commissioned their character sheets: https://twitter.com/Schakerin/status/1310629319279075328
> 
> So. I really love Star Wars, but I was always unsure on writing anything serious in it since i was always worried i'd fuck up the lore/timeline in some how, but now i said fuck it and im doing this crossover. it's gonna be a very _personal_ story between Akechi and Akira, so there won't be much intersection with Star Wars canon characters (except at a... certain point hehe), but Star Wars canon is this story's canon so... yeah. 
> 
> I'm very excited about this story, so I hope y'all enjoy it! 
> 
> (PS the quote in the summary is from the Good Place, for those curious)
> 
> Some helpful notes:
> 
>  **LAVENZA** \- [a Crescent-class freighter](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Crescent-class_Transport)  
>  **Justine and Caroline** \- [R3-Q5 astromech droid](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/R3-Q5). Akira obtained and reprogrammed these two with curious results...  
>  **Nar Shaddaa** \- [a moon](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nar_Shaddaa) that orbits Nal Hutta. AKA "Smuggler's Moon".  
>  **Rimmer's Rest** \- [a cantina](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rimmer%27s_Rest/Legends) also known as Smuggler's Bar. A place to do business and hang out.


End file.
